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Monthly Archives: November 2011

It was 46 degrees today and a beautiful day to go birdwatching at Smith & Bybee Lakes.

I am not very good at tree identification, so I took some pictures of the leaves fallen on the ground, so for those who know, it will help show what type of trees are here. I think the fallen leaves are beautiful anyway so are great to capture. I know there are a lot of cottonwoods, willow, and ash. The snowberries were bountiful and full of berries.

snowberries

It was so different from the last time I was here about a month ago. Since I plan on returning regularly and capturing the changes over the year, I was planning on taking pictures from exactly the same spots each time. But today the water level was so much higher than a month ago, that I couldn’t stand in the exact same spot. At Smith Lake where I stood before was completely underwater now. So my pictures today are from a bit further back so capture some different trees on the sidelines etc. Where I saw the coyote snuggle down in the sun last time is also underwater today.

Overall, everything was a lot less green and a lot more yellow. The trees were half-bare, most leaves fallen to the ground. There were less birds on the open water. Last time I was out there was still the end of migration. Now we’ve settled into whatever will be wintering here.